:: Someone who is in favor of deleting some pages that others prefer to keep. Often used as a derogatory term. The term 'inclusionist' for the opposite party is less used.

:: Someone who is in favor of deleting some pages that others prefer to keep. Often used as a derogatory term. The term 'inclusionist' for the opposite party is less used.

−

:: ''See also [[m:deletionism]] and [[m:inclusionism]].''

+

:: ''See also [[Meta:deletionism]] and [[Meta:inclusionism]].''

;<div id=De-sysop style="font-weight: bold">De-sysop</div>

;<div id=De-sysop style="font-weight: bold">De-sysop</div>

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;<div id=Developer style="font-weight: bold">Developer</div>

;<div id=Developer style="font-weight: bold">Developer</div>

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:: A user who can make direct changes to the [[Wikipedia software]] and database.

+

:: A user who can make direct changes to the [[w:Wikipedia software|Wikipedia software]] and database.

−

:: ''See also [[m:Developer]] for a list of developers and further information.''

+

:: ''See also [[Meta:Developer]] for a list of developers and further information.''

;<div id=De-Wikify style="font-weight: bold">De-Wikify</div>

;<div id=De-Wikify style="font-weight: bold">De-Wikify</div>

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:: The difference between two versions of page, as displayed using the ''Page history'' feature, or from [[Special:Recentchanges|Recent Changes]]. The versions to compare are encoded in the [[URL]], so you can make a link by copying and pasting it - for instance when discussing a change on an article's talk page.

:: The difference between two versions of page, as displayed using the ''Page history'' feature, or from [[Special:Recentchanges|Recent Changes]]. The versions to compare are encoded in the [[URL]], so you can make a link by copying and pasting it - for instance when discussing a change on an article's talk page.

Note: while the definitions below may be useful for understanding and writing text in the community pages (Talk, Wikipedia, User, Meta, etc.), please write actual encyclopedia articles in jargon-free language which is readily understandable without specific knowledge of the Wikipedia project.a

A subpage of a Talk page to which some parts of the discussion are transferred, to reduce the size of the Talk page. Rarely, the term may refer to the Wikipedia:Archive page, for obsolete historical material.

B

Ban

Banning is the extreme, last resort action by which someone is prevented from editing Wikipedia for a prolonged or indeterminate length of time. Reason for banning is usually a long history of biased edits, persistent adding of incorrect or doubtful material, refusal to cooperate with others, or extreme incivility and threats. If someone is banned, their username is blocked, and any username or IP identified as being the same person that is with great likelihood identified as being the same person can be blocked without any further reason. See also: block

Removing all content from a page. Newcomers often do this accidentally. On the other hand, if blanking an article is done in bad faith, it is vandalism. If blanking is done to a vandalised brand-new page, it is maintenance, and the page will be deleted by an admin within a few hours if no dispute arises. {{delete}} should be added to the blanked page to draw attention to it, rather than just blanking it.

Block

Action by a sysop, removing from a certain IP-number or username the ability to edit Wikipedia. Usually done against addresses that have done vandalism or against users who have been banned. See also: ban

Boilerplate text

A standard message which can be added to an article using a Meta:template. For example, {{stub}} is expanded to the following:

This article or section is a stub (i.e., in need of additional material). You can help OrthodoxWiki by expanding it.

C

Cabal

A secretive organization which some Wikipedians claim is ultimately responsible for the development of Wikipedia. Supposedly the Cabal acts to stifle dissent and impose their private points of view while hypocritically extolling NPOV. Admins who take action against users for seemingly illogical or immature reasons are often claimed to be acting on behalf of the Cabal.

A term used for articles which seem to attempt a conversation with the reader. Chatty articles may need cleanup.

Cleanup

The process of repairing articles that are ungrammatical, are poorly formatted, etc. Cleanup generally requires only editing skills, as opposed to the specialized knowledge that is more often called for by pages needing attention.

Collaboration of the week, an article needing improvement that is selected by vote to be the subject of widespread cooperative editing for a week.

Cut and paste move

Moving a page by taking the text of the page, and put it into the edit window for the second page. Generally considered worse than the 'move page' option, because it causes the page and its edit history to be in different places. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators.

To remove a phrase's bold typeface, because it is not the first reference to the title or a synonym of the topic (which should be bold), or that it is not the topic of the article at all. Common situations when one would de-bold include: bold foreign words (should instead be italicized) and bold Wikilinks (which, according to current Manual of Style, should be plain).

Deletionist

Someone who is in favor of deleting some pages that others prefer to keep. Often used as a derogatory term. The term 'inclusionist' for the opposite party is less used.

The difference between two versions of page, as displayed using the Page history feature, or from Recent Changes. The versions to compare are encoded in the URL, so you can make a link by copying and pasting it - for instance when discussing a change on an article's talk page.

Two or more parties continually making their preferred changes to a page, and undoing the changes they don't agree with. Generally, an edit war is the result of an argument on a talk page that could not be resolved.

F

A neologism most often seen on WP:VFD, meaning a trivia article of interest only to hardcore fans of a specific film, television series, book, game, etc. Where the line is drawn is highly subjective and can be controversial. Often seen as an insult to those who've contributed that information, and to others interested in the subject.

Forest fire

A flame war which spreads, seemingly uncontrollably, beyond the pages where it began into unrelated articles' talk pages. A forest fire becomes progressively more difficult for any user to keep track of. On Wikipedia, this is less of a problem than on other wikis, due to well-established boundaries for user conduct, clear guidelines for article content, and a formal dispute resolution process.

A link pointing to another page within Wikipedia or its sister projects by using the wiki markup double square-brackets "[[" and "]]". Sometimes they are referred to as wikilinks or internal links. These links usually show up as blue if they are working and you haven't visited them before, red if they are broken, and purple if they are working and you have visited them before; note that they do not have the arrow symbol characteristic of an external link.

G

Running sections or titles of articles through the Google search engine for various purposes. The four most common are to check for copyright violations, to determine which term among several is the most widely used, to decide whether a person is sufficiently famous to warrant an article or is simply engaging in vanity and to check whether a questionable and obscure topic is real (as opposed to the idiosyncratic invention of a particular individual).

H

I

An abbreviation for I Am Not A Lawyer, indicating that an editor is about to give their opinion on a legal matter as they understand it, although they are not qualified and probably don't fully understand the law in question.

Infobox

A consistently-formatted table which is present in articles with a common subject.

Neutral point of view, or the agreement to report subjective opinions objectively, so as not to cause edit wars between opposing sides. As a verb, to remove biased statements or slanted phrasing. As an adjective, it indicates that an article is in compliance with Wikipedia's NPOV policy.

Nupedia

A Wikipedia predecessor project that shut down in 2003. It is currently inactive and there are no plans to resurrect it.

O

P

Page

Any individual topic within Wikipedia; the web page without the top, bottom and side bars. Pages include articles, stubs, redirects, disambiguation pages, user pages, talk pages, documentation and special pages.

Patent nonsense

A humorous pejorative applied to articles that are either completely unintelligible or totally irrelevant. See Wikipedia:Patent nonsense.

A link where the displayed text is not the name of the target article. Such links are created using the pipe character "|" e.g. [[Target article|Displayed text]]. The pipe trick is a software feature that generates the displayed text for you in certain circumstances.

S

s/word1/word2/

Replace word1 with word2. Used in edit summaries. It is a reference to the command for "find and replace" in languages such as sed and Perl. s/word1/word2/g means "replace all occurrences of word1 with word2" (g stands for "global").

Using the 'edit' links to the right of the page, one can get an edit window containing only part of the page, making it (hopefully) easier to find the exact spot where one wants to edit. Javascript is needed for section editing. You can turn section editing off in your preferences under the "Enable section editing via [edit] links" option.

Self-link

A Wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article, e.g. linking Vice President in the article "Vice President". Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasised text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified.

Skin

The appearance theme in Special:Preferences. Currently, five are available: Standard, Nostalgia, Cologne Blue, Monobook, and MySkin.

Sock puppet

Another user account created secretly by an existing wikipedian, generally to manufacture the illusion of support in a vote or argument.

A very short article or page that essentially points the reader in the direction of another page. Used in cases where a normal redirect is inappropriate for various reasons (e.g. it is a cross-wiki redirect)

T

A type of infobox, a taxobox is a taxonomy table positioned at the right side of an entry for a species of organism (or for a genus or family), giving a chart of the kingdom, phylum, etc. of the creature. Taxoboxes are also used for similar standardised tables.

There are two main ways of using templates on articles: inclusion (accomplished by using {{Template Name}}), and transclusion ({{subst:Template Name}}). The former will include the content of Template Name on the fly whenever the article is loaded, while the latter will permanently insert the content of the template onto the article. Thus, using transclusion, if the template content is modified at a later date, the article's content will not change.

Transclusion is the preferred method for short-term, non-permanent notices, as it is less confusing, and even helps to lighten the load on the database.

Translation

The English-language Wikipedia should have only pages in English. Non-English pages are subject to deletion unless translated.

A user who incites or engages in disruptive behavior (trolling). This term is applied fairly arbitrarily; generally, it can be assumed that someone who calls another user a troll simply does not like that user. Admins sometimes consider trolling to be justification for banning indefinitely. The validity of this is somewhat questionable, partly because the definition of troll is not agreed upon, and because calling someone a troll has an effect similar to calling them a Nazi: no further meaningful debate can be held.

A personal page for Wikipedians. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used by Wikipedians to communicate with each other via the user talk pages. A user page is linked to as [[User:Hephaestos|Hephaestos]] and appears as Hephaestos.

V

Vandalbot

Some kind of bot being used for vandalism or spamming. Recognizable by the fact that one or a few IP-addresses make many similar clearly vandalist edits in a short time. In the worst cases these have created or vandalized hundreds of pages in several Wikipedias in a timespan of only minutes.

Deliberate defacement of Wikipedia pages. This can be by deleting text or writing nonsense, bad language etcetera. The term is often incorrectly used to discredit the views of an opponent in edit wars. Vandalism can be reported at Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress.

A page in the article namespace that presents biographical details of a non-famous person favorably and is considered inappropriate and/or unencyclopedic by most Wikipedians. Such articles are often suspected to be written by their subjects.

Code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient, for example '''bold''' instead of <b>bold</b>. It is the source code stored in the database and shown in the edit box. Searching by the Wikipedia software is done in the wikitext, as opposed to searching by Google, which is done in the resulting text. The size of a page is the size of the wikitext.

Personal stress or tension induced by editing Wikipedia, or more often by being involved in minor conflict with another editor. Some users maintain a Wikistress meter on their user page. See Wikistress template.

Wiktionary

A Wikipedia sister project to create a free online dictionary of every language.